Channel Ferries

[nedfumpkin]

Disabling station amenities doesn't affect service towers or maintenance sheds because they are necessary, only hotels, restaurants, yards, etc will be affected.

[Blackhawk]

Under disable stations on the special conditions page, the description says it includes service towers and maintenance sheds. When the ability to build stations is disabled, I seem to be unable to build the towers or sheds.

[nedfumpkin]

I'll take a look and confirm, then fix the language file.

[edbangor]

Under disable stations on the special conditions page, the description says it includes service towers and maintenance sheds. When the ability to build stations is disabled, I seem to be unable to build the towers or sheds.

Brilliant. That does indeed disable service towers and maintenance sheds as I've tested it. So I'll go with that.
Not being able to build stations will change a few things I was planning but in most cases that can be solved by my placing the station in the place/s where the player needs to connect to in the editor. That will take some of the surprise out of it but never mind.

[edbangor]

Here's another test map for those interested.

I've redone the existing layout, so that the Ferry company now owns all the stations currently on the map, and added maintenance buildings behind them on 'land' before disabling the ability to build this. This means all trains will have to be routed to visit these at one end of each journey, or even both on the longer runs. (similar to what you would do if you were trying to get speed records).

I've also disabled the ability to build any industry buildings, so this scenario will just be about hauling cargo to begin with, to earn the track to connect up the existing lines (and fix some of the bottlenecks I've built in), and then expand out to a couple of unconnected ports (a station will be there but I don't want to give away where), and some sources of Uranium (again no hints). The cargo aspect I want to make as micro manageable as possible so ideas on how to do that will be welcome.

I've also fixed a couple of other minor issues with the map itself. The next stage will be to build the AI's lines and stations, which will be near, but not connected to the "Port" stations, although they will overlap to allow cargoes to move between them. I will probably also make passengers/mail more of a feature than usual in TM, to form a cash cow backbone of the Ferry companies business which is why I've left Hotels, etc... still buildable assuming you can find room for them, obviously.

Anyway, have a look and see what you think. Suggestions are welcome.

aaqyChannel.rar

(2.38 MiB) Downloaded 377 times

[edbangor]

Yes I know it's been a while but I've been very lacking in train time recently.
Hopefully this map will now be able to continue using all the suggestions given above.... oh wait!

[edbangor]

Progress has been made.

All the AI railways have been built in England, France and the Channel Island, although as the latter only had room for a short end-to-end, I also allowed them to build in the Isle of Wight!

I've also re-jigged the start up AI rules, to make allowences for just how stupid the AI can be (I gave them all electric track, and very cheep electric locos and they still all went with just steam!!)

Anyway, the basic set up is now complete, and I've laid out some of the goals which will involve connecting the various channel crossings together, and then expanding to the two cities mentioned, before finally heading out to get the deep sea mines off the coast of north Cornwall.

I've also renamed all the AI stations, and maintanence / water towers, to make it easier to for the human to route trains.

This is shaping out to be very different from my normal scenarios of building industry > connecting to goals > shipping goods to goals.

In this one it is all about track building, and hauling enough cargo to get the track pieces you are going to need. However, decisions are going to have to be made about if you expand fast, or fix some of the bottle necks I've build into the exisit network.

The AI companies are just there to haul cargos to and from the ports for you to take accross the channel nothing else altough I've left the stock market available for some insider trading.

Just need to run a few tests to see what / how many cargoes will give rise to the track peices and work out just how many are needed to get to the various points (I assume one "Track peice" equals a single track cross one grid square).

Anyway, see what you all think and I'll get back to this after the holiday season when hopefully my train time will increase.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I had a quick look at it, and my only comment so far (I haven't really started to run trains, just looking at the "lay of the land") is that the stations are so small that there's hardly any cargo to load on to trains. Only a few stations have more than 1 few loads of anything due to the very small footprint of the stations. Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't find anything that's worth hauling anywhere. I was able to build a large station next to one of the small ones, and I think a couple of them have enough room to "upgrade" to a large station; I thought you weren't supposed to be able to build stations.

I'll comment more after I've had a chance to play into the scenario a little bit.

You should also put "TM" somewhere in the name. I originally loaded it into 1.06, and only after seeing the briefing did I realize that it was a TM scenario. I guess I should have realized that from the thread title, but I rarely pay attention to those when I click on unread posts.

Oh, and by the way, Merry Chrismas, Happy Holidays/New Year, and may you all have a safe and rewarding 2011.

[edbangor]

You're right stations building should be disabled, but I must have forgotten to turn that back off again.

Finding cargo is going to be tricky to start with until the AI's start hauling it around but, as test plays progress I will start hand placing some industry to ensure there will be enough to move once I've worked out which cargos (and to where) will trigger the extra track peices being allowed.